


While Ever To Her (The Apotheosis Remix)

by Medie



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Multi, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-02
Updated: 2011-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 22:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The gods of the Orions are not gods as the aliens understand them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While Ever To Her (The Apotheosis Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boosette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boosette/gifts).
  * Inspired by [and yet less bright, the stars tonight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/171654) by Anonymous. 



Orions do not pray. They do not prostrate or plea. Their goddesses are not as outworlders would imagine. There are no creation myths, no tales of forgiveness and redemption, and none of extinction either. There is now and tomorrow and the goddesses ask nothing of their followers but the tributes they are due.

Tributes they once paid themselves for all, save Moraig who is death and knows nothing of birth or life, were once born to living flesh until they stormed paradise, seizing deity and its riches for themselves. They take their tributes, sit in their power, and dare all the queens who follow to do as they did.

Gaila has not paid tribute to any of them in many years. Not since she stole her own paradise in a battered scrap of a ship and made her way to Federation-controlled space. She was sworn to Vaile once. Vaile, Queen and Mother of All, slayer of gods and men alike, born of the Southern Shores and consort to Death before her ascension. Sworn to her and her service, trained in the ways of life and death, and still carries the blade given to her at the temple, Vaile's likeness etched into the metal.

She can feel it tucked in her boot, snug against her leg as she runs through the _Farragut_ 's corridors with Captain Garrovick's blood staining her uniform. The captain's last message, an order to abandon ship, plays shipwide. His defacto exec, Gaila makes her way through the ship, communicator in hand, coordinating the evacuation. Every step, she feels Vaile's fury seep into her bones, the same fury which had slayed goddesses and the despots of old, and she smiles with the thrill of it.

The ship lurches, groaning in its death throes, and she reaches for that rage with a benediction that grants it permission to consume her. She lays claim to the battle, to the dead and the dying, and she grants Moraig those who are beyond saving. She thinks of her captain, his blood spilling as she'd knelt at his side, whispering the old words which would commend his spirit into Moraig's hands.

The Orion goddesses know nothing of a human man's touch and the image of the charming, affable captain caught between Moraig and Vaile makes Gaila smile despite her fury. She lets herself see it, if only for a moment, Garrovick's pale skin flushed pink with pleasure as Moraig moves over him, one hand buried in the deep black of Vaile's hair and the other moving between her strong thighs.

Gaila imagines the energy of it all sweeping through the ship and her crew, pushing them onward, and laughs as she lifts a crewman to his feet.

Let the old seers in their temples make sense of _those_ visions.

The image is almost enough to carry her through the day, but when she sings the lament for Vulcan and the Fleet both, Gaila's voice stutters and fails in ways for which the burns on her body cannot claim credit.

The shuttle is full beyond capacity, the transporter buffer carrying every pattern she could snatch from Vulcan's surface, and the silence brings with it the cool promise of Auro's presence. Goddess of birth and war—interchangeable as they are among Orions—and patroness of vengeance. There are no songs to be sung for such vows for words spoken can be heard and betrayed into enemy ears. There is the promise of suffering and death. Gaila imagines the footfall of the sisters who have gone before, silent and unheard, moving through space with blades in hand. She pictures blood spilling in answer to promises made and she closes her eyes, still silent.

When she sings again to break that silence, it is in the dead of night and many days later. She is on Earth and Jim is at her side. She curls herself around him with the memory of his fingers gentle on skin so recently healed and whispers the song between breaths.

She does not offer thanks. She does not need to. Orions understand their goddesses and their goddesses understand their people.

Some things do not need to be said.

-

"The gods of the Orions are not gods as the aliens understand them." A gnarled hand brushes fingertips against the silky-smooth of a much younger cheek. The old woman to whom it belongs smiles at the child sitting before her. "They were women, once, as much flesh and blood as you and I."

The child climbs up into her grandmother's lap, mindful of old bones, and settles herself to listen. She's heard these stories before. Heard the old one speak of Auro from whom all take their birth—for no Orion woman was given life, she stole it for herself, ripping it from the goddesses and surging into the world with her mother screaming a warning to all who might hear her—and Vaile of the Southern Shores, Queen and Mother of all, slayer of the gods and men, consort to Moraig, the last of the old ones, Death herself.

She smiles, tucking herself beneath a whiskered chin. She won't hear of them today. Today is a day of death and vengeance, of life and victory, and dedicated to one goddess above all.

"Do you have it with you?" Her grandmother asks and she produces the blade upon which Gaila's likeness is carved. "Good. Carry it with you always, little one. For it was Gaila who taught us of rebirth."

Blade in hand, she settles back to listen, tracing the image upon the knife.


End file.
